March 15, 2000

Powder and Sun, the good and the bad

The sun was out this morning, lighting up all that fresh powder that fell yesterday. It sure looked like it would be great, but I had a prior commitment and couldn't get out until after lunch and by then the sun had disappeared. My first target was Steep and Deep, but a single turn revealed sun damage had eliminated the possibility of a luscious powder run. I traversed across to the shady side of Red Tree where I did find some pretty nice if somewhat heavy powder.

Further investigation showed that anything that had been in the sun now had a thin sun crust or worse if it had been chopped while the sun was out. On the other hand, North facing slopes were generally very nice even when chopped up.

On my first ride up the Bear, my lift companion commented that he had been out yesterday morning, but had left early because conditions weren't very good. I was flabbergasted since I thought it was really good yesterday and am not particularly known for being overly generous. It seems he found the snow too heavy, despite obviously being an experienced boarder, and found the stinging wet snow less than pleasant on the face. He found the snow and everything else better today, while I was exactly the opposite. Just goes to show how reliable on slope reports are. ;-)

Late in the day, they still hadn't opened Currie, but there was quite a few people waiting anxiously at the top of White Pass for some sign of encouragement. This seemed rather a waste to me for there was lots of great skiing around and even skiing crud is better than sitting around waiting to race down with a mob to claim first track bragging rights. Once again, different folks, different strokes.

At 6:10 PM it is 1 C at the house with a mix of blue and gray sky.